"Say Hello to Your Renton Sonics!"
That very well may be what Sonics fans hear from the PA announcer next season. Yeah for Ren'-uhn. (The single apostrophe indicates a glottal stop which is used in place of the "T" sound in the name Renton. On the other hand, if you pronounce it clearly, like "RenT-on" then the name sounds stuffy, as if you were describing a rural English county. Our fair town of Ren'-uhn is no stuffy English county.)
I rarely go watch Sonics games at Key Arena, even though I live just a few blocks from there. This past weekend, however, I accompanied Lorinda to the arena and watched the Sonics defeat the Toronto Raptors 110-97. As I watched this game, my mind wandered to the other handful of times I have sat in this arena and its predecessor, The Coliseum. I was (and am) acutely aware that this past weekend may very well have been the last time I will ever see the "Seattle" Sonics. New ownership is clamoring for a new stadium containing luxury boxes. The City of Seattle is a little tired of shelling out tax dollars for new arenas (i.e. Safeco and Qwest), and local hotel and restaurant owners are very tired of having to charge their customers high taxes to pay for those stadiums. By next season, the Sonics will either still be known as the "Seattle" Sonics and play somewhere else in King County (like Bellevue or Renton), or perhaps they will become the "Oklahoma City" Sonics which is the city where the primary investors/owners live. In fact, since the Boeing Company has a strong presence in Oklahoma, there would be a delicious irony in the name "Oklahoma City SuperSonics". I believe the Seattle SuperSonics were loosely named (at their inception in 1967) after fast airplanes made by Boeing.
During the game on Saturday, my thoughts turned to the Sonics' history -- at least the history I know first-hand. I am 32 years old, so I was only about 4 or 5 when the Sonics won the NBA championship in the late 70's and I really don't remember it. My family didn't own a TV at the time so the games weren't even available for my child's brain to consume. (Furthermore, my family wasn't really into sports in general). I do, however, remember owning a pair of "Downtown" Freddy Brown pajamas, colored in the same awful green and yellow of the original Sonics uniforms. I also remember the ubiquitous image of Jack Sikma -- the tall, lanky, curly mop-haired white boy on posters, tin lunch boxes, and billboards.
The Sonics as a team were first thrust into my consciousness when I was in junior high school, about twenty years ago (gasp! 20 years ago??). In Nate McMillan's rookie season ('86-'87), the Sonics staged an improbable and exciting playoff run (Nate McMillan would eventually become known as "Mr. Sonic"). I vividly remember listening to the games on the radio, even though I must have been listening to Bob Blackburn -- I don't recall his voice. A young Dale Ellis was the protagonist of the Sonic victory against the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference semifinals. He drained 3 after 3 after 3 in a remarkable "in-your-face" against his former team. I remember bonding with a cute girl in my shop class during this playoff run; we'd convene excitedly each day at her drafting table and remember the plays we had heard on the radio the night before. This was perhaps my first real interaction with a girl. She became my basketball buddy since no one else in my classes seemed to be paying attention to the Sonics. I can't remember her name now, but I remember she was quite lovely: dark brown eyes, dark brown hair, olive skin.
(Xavier McDaniel -- the "X Man" -- was the other Sonic of note during that time period. He was hyped like no other athlete before or since in the city of Seattle. Except Brian Bosworth, right about the same time -- probably by the same media hype machine.)
The Sonics were destroyed by the Lakers in that Western Conference Finals. Magic Johnson et al. basically sleep-walked through a 4-0 series while resting before an eventual showdown with the Pistons.
My next Sonics memory comes from about a year later, when my maternal grandfather sent me an envelope on my 14th birthday. In the envelope was a stock certificate indicating some number of shares of ownership in the Sonics organization, which he bought in 1967 as a sort of municipal fundraiser for getting the Sonics to Seattle. Along with the stock certificate was a handwritten note: "As part owner of the Sonics, you should fire all non-whites and you'll be well on your way to a championship." (Note for my biographers: I think Grandpa Jack was trying to be funny, not outright racist).
In the fall of that year, the Sonics were scheduled to play the Utah Jazz at home on a weeknight. My father, knowing of my fascination of and idolatry towards John Stockton, the Spokane native who played for the Jazz, drove me from Bellingham to Seattle after school and he bought two nose-bleed tickets and we stood in the rafters of The Coliseum and watched the Jazz beat up on the Sonics. I remember seeing Mark Eaton, the freakishly tall, red-bearded guy, as well as a young Stockton-to-Malone, and Thurl Bailey. I also remember the outrageously fat Jazz coach, Frank Layden, who abruptly retired very soon after that game, and famously mentioned as he left that one of the reasons he quit was because a fan threw gum at him when he was at The Coliseum in Seattle. (Frank Layden selected John Stockton with the 16th pick of the 1984 draft). I honestly don't remember the Sonics that night, though I suppose that team had folks like Nate McMillan, Tom Chambers, Derrick McKey, Michael Cage...
Speaking of Michael Cage. Here are two of my biggest (literally) Sonics memories: Michael Cage's shoulders, and his ugly geri-curl hair. He was a funny looking guy, but he could rebound like no one else (except Dennis Rodman).
Around this same time period there was an "incident" at The Coliseum during one of the home games. Alton Lister's wife and Dale Ellis' wife got into a fistfight.
Also around this time, a Sonics game got rained out. There was a leak in the ceiling and there was water on the floor, so the game was postponed. I think that is a first and only in the history of NBA basketball.
I remember Tom Chambers going to the NBA All-Star game in 1987 at The Kingdome, scoring 40+ points, and winning the All-Star Game MVP award, which might have been the highlight of his career.
I remember Dale Ellis driving his car, while drunk, through the barriers and into the Express Lanes on I-5. The wrong direction.
I remember, sometime around 1990, the Sonics drafted Gary Payton, a 6'4" guard from Oregon State University. I remember my dad shaking his head and angrily asked "Why do we keep drafting short point guards? How are we going to contend with the 6'9" Magic Johnson? We'll NEVER get past the Lakers....". That year or the following, the Sonics picked up a 19 year old kid named Shawn Kemp. He could jump through the roof and showed tremendous potential, but his jumper couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. He was going to be a "project" and would hopefully turn into Moses Malone. No one was going to hold their breath on that hope.
A few years later, in college, I would become aware of the phenomenon which was already then taking shape: "The Six Degrees of Gary Payton". When I was in college, every person in Seattle was no more than six degrees separated from someone who had slept with Gary Payton. GeePee was a notorious hound. They called him "The Glove" but that may have been in reference to his condoms.
I remember Bernie Bickerstaff, who right now is coaching the Charlotte Bobcats. Bernie was the coach during the crazy playoff run of '87, but he failed to evolve well with the evolving cast of players over the next few years, and eventually the Sonics hired K.C. Jones, of Celtics fame, before the start of the '92-'93 season. His arrival was heralded as a wonderful thing for a losing franchise. K.C. was not the answer, however, as he proved a generation or two too old to relate to young guns like Kemp and Payton.
Partway through that season, K.C. Jones left (fired or voluntary, I don't remember) and the Sonics management did what may have been the most intelligent thing in franchise history: hired George Karl and rescued him from basketball quarantine in Europe (he was coaching Real Madrid at the time, and I remember seeing Karl on the sidelines during games between Madrid and Barcelona the year before when I lived in Spain as a high school exchange student). George Karl arrived in Seattle knowing he had another shot at the NBA (he had previously coached in Cleveland and had a meltdown, leading to his banishment from the league) and he dug his heels in and transformed that rag-tag group of inexperienced ballers into a contender -- and quickly!
In the playoffs that spring ('93) the Sonics beat the Utah Jazz in 5 games. I actually went to that Game 5 at The Coliseum, after having stood in line at Ticketmaster the day before to get the tickets. The Sonics had a recently-acquired guy named Sam Perkins who drained 3-pointers like Dale Ellis used to, only he was about 6'11" and he was a center. Hmmm. That Game 5 was a loud, raucous experience and certainly was a lot of fun. I remember feeling sorry for the woman sitting in front of us, as we screamed loudly and shouted profanities at the referees. I remember her covering her young daughter's ears. By the end of the game, both she and her daughter were high-fiving us. I believe she forgave us for our vulgarity. A winning team cures all ills.
The Sonics had a busy off-season that year. Before the start of the '93 season, the Sonics traded for Kendall Gill and Detlef Schrempf. On paper, the Sonics appeared to be a dominant team. My college roommates and I were extremely excited about the prospect of the Sonics having a dominant team (Kemp and Payton, Schrempf, Gill, Ricky Davis, Sam Perkins et al.). We even fantasized about the NBA championship, especially since Michael Jordan had stunned the sports world by retiring (for the first time) earlier that year. In the first post-Jordan era, the Sonics seemed like shoo-ins for the championship. Subsequently, the Sonics staged an incredible season with 62 wins and went into the playoffs extremely confident. Perhaps too confident, and listless. They were beaten in 5 games by the lowly Denver Nuggets. That was the most painful moment in my sports memory. It tasted bitter. I will never forget Dikeme Mutombo lying on the floor of The Coliseum, clutching the basketball, grinning broadly and revealing his diastoma of Schwarzenegger proportions. There was lots of abuse hurled at George Karl. I remember Gary Payton defended Karl and said, in essence, that the players were the ones to blame for failing to execute. I thought it was very upstanding of Payton to take a public stance like that, and I entirely agreed with him.
Fast forward a few months. The beginning of the '94-'95 season. In spite of the Sonics' collapse in the playoffs, they were still poised to make a run at the championship. Kendall Gill self-destructed during the course of that season, but Kemp and Payton fluorished. We were still in the first post-Jordan era so an NBA championship seemed obtainable.
Halfway through that season, I had my 21st birthday. Jenny took me to have dinner at the top of the Space Needle. I remember the incredible view at sunset. I remember looking down into the Seattle Center at the big hole in the ground where The Coliseum had been. The arena was being rebuilt (soon to be reborn as Key Arena), and meanwhile the Sonics were playing in the Tacoma Dome.
Then the playoffs came, and the Sonics nearly repeated their first-round debacle from the year before. But this time they survived against the Kings, barely, and made it into the second round. And then they lost to the Clippers! This virtual repeat of the failure of 1994 seemed more final, somehow. The finality was due in part to the fact that Michael Jordan had recently rejoined the Bulls, near the end of the season, and seemed a few windsprints away from being the same old superhuman basketball player who would soon restore that team into a legitimate contender. The Sonics had missed their brief two year window of opportunity in which they had assembled a huge amount of talent, were poised to exploit the prime years of Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton, and enjoy the absence of Michael Jordan. But they failed.
In failing, however, they provided a heck of a lot of excitement! The Sonics began the '95-'96 campaign knowing that the Bulls had re-tooled and were ready to go, but the Sonics had learned not to look that far ahead.
Eventually, the Sonics did make it through all the preliminary rounds of the playoffs at the end of that season, only to face the invincible Bulls ("The Invici-Bulls") in the NBA Finals. Their journey to The Finals in 1996 provided a great deal of excitement and entertainment. I remember Kevin Calabro calling a lot of exciting games against Houston that year. I remember Vernon Maxwell and a young Sam Cassell, two of the ugliest NBA players ever. I remember Hakeem Olajuwon. I vividly remember one game in which the Sonics set a team or league record for three-pointers. Even Nate McMillan, not known for his long distance shooting, couldn't miss from downtown. In another game during that same series, I remember perhaps my favorite all-time Calabro moment: McMillan dove to the floor to save the ball in bounds, landed among some chairs, but managed to right himself and sprint down the court to steal the ball from the opponent. Calabro's rendition of this incident rang with such poetic clarity, especially when referring to McMillan's heroic recovery... "...like Lazarus, back from the dead!!!". Calabro had a million lines like that, sitting in a seemingly endless vault. When he employed them, they never sounded canned or corny. They were always unique, and always perfectly appropriate. My friend John, who was my equal in literary nerdiness, and I used to deconstruct Calabro's poetic devices. We were the only two guys in the sports bar who would leap to our feet during an exciting play and shout "Brilliant use of synecdoche, Calabro!" or "Wow, alliteration AND metonymy in the same sentence? Move over, Homer!"
The 1996 NBA Finals were considered a foregone conclusion by everyone in the world, including the local Seattle media. The Chicago Bulls had won 70 games that season and seemed truly invincible. The Sonics found themselves down 3-0, then took Game 4 at Chicago to avoid the sweep. Then they won another game at home, before losing the championship in Game 6. Shawn Kemp played a courageous series and nearly willed his team to victory. My favorite memory from The Finals was when Gary Payton stole the ball from Michael Jordan then raced down the court and actually (though barely)dunked the ball; then he trotted back, glowering at Jordan. It seemed ill-advised to me at the time, to be taunting MJ like that -- espcially after such a lame dunk.
I also remember Nate McMillan had major back pain, and was unable to play during The Finals. I remember images of him sobbing on the sidelines during the series, in pain probably as much from the psychological agony as the back spasms.
In the '96-'97 season everything went downhill. Shawn Kemp started acting like a petulant baby, even though he was finally a man. The Sonics had signed Jim McIlvaine in the offseason to an outrageously expensive contract, even though McIlvaine was an unproven, gangly, unimpressive basketball player. But he was about 7'1", so he got the money. That contract seemed to anger Kemp a great deal, and by the next season Kemp was gone -- a free agent signed by Cleveland. The Sonics' brief George Karl dynasty was officially dead. Karl moved on to Milwaukee, and Paul Westphal started his brief tenure in Seattle (as a coach this time).
I have barely paid attention to the Sonics in the past few years, except for the times when I feel like I need a good Kevin Calabro "fix". The trade for Ray Allen has availed me the opportunity to see one of the most amazing basketball players on the planet. Ray Allen is a special player and it's truly a pity that he has to languish on this horrible Seattle team since Howard Schultz brought him here 3 or 4 years ago. I respect and admire Allen's courage at playing so well and so consistently, even on a crappy team.
The one consistent factor in my 20 years of Sonics: Kevin "The Golden Voice" Calabro. He has a gift and there is truly no one like him. He has made it impossible for me to listen to any other sportscaster. They all seem so tepid, gratuitous, and amateur. Calabro can paint a picture with words so perfectly. I often imagine him sitting around a campfire, reciting The Iliad from memory, painting an oral picture of a civilization and a war in a land and time far, far away. Calabro is the quasi-celebrity I would most like to meet. He, like Ray Allen, has soldiered on even in recent years, still putting forth unparalleled work but not really having much material to work with. There is truly nothing like listening to Calabro call an exciting basketball game. If there could be a second "Mr. Sonic", then it would be Calabro.
That very well may be what Sonics fans hear from the PA announcer next season. Yeah for Ren'-uhn. (The single apostrophe indicates a glottal stop which is used in place of the "T" sound in the name Renton. On the other hand, if you pronounce it clearly, like "RenT-on" then the name sounds stuffy, as if you were describing a rural English county. Our fair town of Ren'-uhn is no stuffy English county.)
I rarely go watch Sonics games at Key Arena, even though I live just a few blocks from there. This past weekend, however, I accompanied Lorinda to the arena and watched the Sonics defeat the Toronto Raptors 110-97. As I watched this game, my mind wandered to the other handful of times I have sat in this arena and its predecessor, The Coliseum. I was (and am) acutely aware that this past weekend may very well have been the last time I will ever see the "Seattle" Sonics. New ownership is clamoring for a new stadium containing luxury boxes. The City of Seattle is a little tired of shelling out tax dollars for new arenas (i.e. Safeco and Qwest), and local hotel and restaurant owners are very tired of having to charge their customers high taxes to pay for those stadiums. By next season, the Sonics will either still be known as the "Seattle" Sonics and play somewhere else in King County (like Bellevue or Renton), or perhaps they will become the "Oklahoma City" Sonics which is the city where the primary investors/owners live. In fact, since the Boeing Company has a strong presence in Oklahoma, there would be a delicious irony in the name "Oklahoma City SuperSonics". I believe the Seattle SuperSonics were loosely named (at their inception in 1967) after fast airplanes made by Boeing.
During the game on Saturday, my thoughts turned to the Sonics' history -- at least the history I know first-hand. I am 32 years old, so I was only about 4 or 5 when the Sonics won the NBA championship in the late 70's and I really don't remember it. My family didn't own a TV at the time so the games weren't even available for my child's brain to consume. (Furthermore, my family wasn't really into sports in general). I do, however, remember owning a pair of "Downtown" Freddy Brown pajamas, colored in the same awful green and yellow of the original Sonics uniforms. I also remember the ubiquitous image of Jack Sikma -- the tall, lanky, curly mop-haired white boy on posters, tin lunch boxes, and billboards.
The Sonics as a team were first thrust into my consciousness when I was in junior high school, about twenty years ago (gasp! 20 years ago??). In Nate McMillan's rookie season ('86-'87), the Sonics staged an improbable and exciting playoff run (Nate McMillan would eventually become known as "Mr. Sonic"). I vividly remember listening to the games on the radio, even though I must have been listening to Bob Blackburn -- I don't recall his voice. A young Dale Ellis was the protagonist of the Sonic victory against the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference semifinals. He drained 3 after 3 after 3 in a remarkable "in-your-face" against his former team. I remember bonding with a cute girl in my shop class during this playoff run; we'd convene excitedly each day at her drafting table and remember the plays we had heard on the radio the night before. This was perhaps my first real interaction with a girl. She became my basketball buddy since no one else in my classes seemed to be paying attention to the Sonics. I can't remember her name now, but I remember she was quite lovely: dark brown eyes, dark brown hair, olive skin.
(Xavier McDaniel -- the "X Man" -- was the other Sonic of note during that time period. He was hyped like no other athlete before or since in the city of Seattle. Except Brian Bosworth, right about the same time -- probably by the same media hype machine.)
The Sonics were destroyed by the Lakers in that Western Conference Finals. Magic Johnson et al. basically sleep-walked through a 4-0 series while resting before an eventual showdown with the Pistons.
My next Sonics memory comes from about a year later, when my maternal grandfather sent me an envelope on my 14th birthday. In the envelope was a stock certificate indicating some number of shares of ownership in the Sonics organization, which he bought in 1967 as a sort of municipal fundraiser for getting the Sonics to Seattle. Along with the stock certificate was a handwritten note: "As part owner of the Sonics, you should fire all non-whites and you'll be well on your way to a championship." (Note for my biographers: I think Grandpa Jack was trying to be funny, not outright racist).
In the fall of that year, the Sonics were scheduled to play the Utah Jazz at home on a weeknight. My father, knowing of my fascination of and idolatry towards John Stockton, the Spokane native who played for the Jazz, drove me from Bellingham to Seattle after school and he bought two nose-bleed tickets and we stood in the rafters of The Coliseum and watched the Jazz beat up on the Sonics. I remember seeing Mark Eaton, the freakishly tall, red-bearded guy, as well as a young Stockton-to-Malone, and Thurl Bailey. I also remember the outrageously fat Jazz coach, Frank Layden, who abruptly retired very soon after that game, and famously mentioned as he left that one of the reasons he quit was because a fan threw gum at him when he was at The Coliseum in Seattle. (Frank Layden selected John Stockton with the 16th pick of the 1984 draft). I honestly don't remember the Sonics that night, though I suppose that team had folks like Nate McMillan, Tom Chambers, Derrick McKey, Michael Cage...
Speaking of Michael Cage. Here are two of my biggest (literally) Sonics memories: Michael Cage's shoulders, and his ugly geri-curl hair. He was a funny looking guy, but he could rebound like no one else (except Dennis Rodman).
Around this same time period there was an "incident" at The Coliseum during one of the home games. Alton Lister's wife and Dale Ellis' wife got into a fistfight.
Also around this time, a Sonics game got rained out. There was a leak in the ceiling and there was water on the floor, so the game was postponed. I think that is a first and only in the history of NBA basketball.
I remember Tom Chambers going to the NBA All-Star game in 1987 at The Kingdome, scoring 40+ points, and winning the All-Star Game MVP award, which might have been the highlight of his career.
I remember Dale Ellis driving his car, while drunk, through the barriers and into the Express Lanes on I-5. The wrong direction.
I remember, sometime around 1990, the Sonics drafted Gary Payton, a 6'4" guard from Oregon State University. I remember my dad shaking his head and angrily asked "Why do we keep drafting short point guards? How are we going to contend with the 6'9" Magic Johnson? We'll NEVER get past the Lakers....". That year or the following, the Sonics picked up a 19 year old kid named Shawn Kemp. He could jump through the roof and showed tremendous potential, but his jumper couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. He was going to be a "project" and would hopefully turn into Moses Malone. No one was going to hold their breath on that hope.
A few years later, in college, I would become aware of the phenomenon which was already then taking shape: "The Six Degrees of Gary Payton". When I was in college, every person in Seattle was no more than six degrees separated from someone who had slept with Gary Payton. GeePee was a notorious hound. They called him "The Glove" but that may have been in reference to his condoms.
I remember Bernie Bickerstaff, who right now is coaching the Charlotte Bobcats. Bernie was the coach during the crazy playoff run of '87, but he failed to evolve well with the evolving cast of players over the next few years, and eventually the Sonics hired K.C. Jones, of Celtics fame, before the start of the '92-'93 season. His arrival was heralded as a wonderful thing for a losing franchise. K.C. was not the answer, however, as he proved a generation or two too old to relate to young guns like Kemp and Payton.
Partway through that season, K.C. Jones left (fired or voluntary, I don't remember) and the Sonics management did what may have been the most intelligent thing in franchise history: hired George Karl and rescued him from basketball quarantine in Europe (he was coaching Real Madrid at the time, and I remember seeing Karl on the sidelines during games between Madrid and Barcelona the year before when I lived in Spain as a high school exchange student). George Karl arrived in Seattle knowing he had another shot at the NBA (he had previously coached in Cleveland and had a meltdown, leading to his banishment from the league) and he dug his heels in and transformed that rag-tag group of inexperienced ballers into a contender -- and quickly!
In the playoffs that spring ('93) the Sonics beat the Utah Jazz in 5 games. I actually went to that Game 5 at The Coliseum, after having stood in line at Ticketmaster the day before to get the tickets. The Sonics had a recently-acquired guy named Sam Perkins who drained 3-pointers like Dale Ellis used to, only he was about 6'11" and he was a center. Hmmm. That Game 5 was a loud, raucous experience and certainly was a lot of fun. I remember feeling sorry for the woman sitting in front of us, as we screamed loudly and shouted profanities at the referees. I remember her covering her young daughter's ears. By the end of the game, both she and her daughter were high-fiving us. I believe she forgave us for our vulgarity. A winning team cures all ills.
The Sonics had a busy off-season that year. Before the start of the '93 season, the Sonics traded for Kendall Gill and Detlef Schrempf. On paper, the Sonics appeared to be a dominant team. My college roommates and I were extremely excited about the prospect of the Sonics having a dominant team (Kemp and Payton, Schrempf, Gill, Ricky Davis, Sam Perkins et al.). We even fantasized about the NBA championship, especially since Michael Jordan had stunned the sports world by retiring (for the first time) earlier that year. In the first post-Jordan era, the Sonics seemed like shoo-ins for the championship. Subsequently, the Sonics staged an incredible season with 62 wins and went into the playoffs extremely confident. Perhaps too confident, and listless. They were beaten in 5 games by the lowly Denver Nuggets. That was the most painful moment in my sports memory. It tasted bitter. I will never forget Dikeme Mutombo lying on the floor of The Coliseum, clutching the basketball, grinning broadly and revealing his diastoma of Schwarzenegger proportions. There was lots of abuse hurled at George Karl. I remember Gary Payton defended Karl and said, in essence, that the players were the ones to blame for failing to execute. I thought it was very upstanding of Payton to take a public stance like that, and I entirely agreed with him.
Fast forward a few months. The beginning of the '94-'95 season. In spite of the Sonics' collapse in the playoffs, they were still poised to make a run at the championship. Kendall Gill self-destructed during the course of that season, but Kemp and Payton fluorished. We were still in the first post-Jordan era so an NBA championship seemed obtainable.
Halfway through that season, I had my 21st birthday. Jenny took me to have dinner at the top of the Space Needle. I remember the incredible view at sunset. I remember looking down into the Seattle Center at the big hole in the ground where The Coliseum had been. The arena was being rebuilt (soon to be reborn as Key Arena), and meanwhile the Sonics were playing in the Tacoma Dome.
Then the playoffs came, and the Sonics nearly repeated their first-round debacle from the year before. But this time they survived against the Kings, barely, and made it into the second round. And then they lost to the Clippers! This virtual repeat of the failure of 1994 seemed more final, somehow. The finality was due in part to the fact that Michael Jordan had recently rejoined the Bulls, near the end of the season, and seemed a few windsprints away from being the same old superhuman basketball player who would soon restore that team into a legitimate contender. The Sonics had missed their brief two year window of opportunity in which they had assembled a huge amount of talent, were poised to exploit the prime years of Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton, and enjoy the absence of Michael Jordan. But they failed.
In failing, however, they provided a heck of a lot of excitement! The Sonics began the '95-'96 campaign knowing that the Bulls had re-tooled and were ready to go, but the Sonics had learned not to look that far ahead.
Eventually, the Sonics did make it through all the preliminary rounds of the playoffs at the end of that season, only to face the invincible Bulls ("The Invici-Bulls") in the NBA Finals. Their journey to The Finals in 1996 provided a great deal of excitement and entertainment. I remember Kevin Calabro calling a lot of exciting games against Houston that year. I remember Vernon Maxwell and a young Sam Cassell, two of the ugliest NBA players ever. I remember Hakeem Olajuwon. I vividly remember one game in which the Sonics set a team or league record for three-pointers. Even Nate McMillan, not known for his long distance shooting, couldn't miss from downtown. In another game during that same series, I remember perhaps my favorite all-time Calabro moment: McMillan dove to the floor to save the ball in bounds, landed among some chairs, but managed to right himself and sprint down the court to steal the ball from the opponent. Calabro's rendition of this incident rang with such poetic clarity, especially when referring to McMillan's heroic recovery... "...like Lazarus, back from the dead!!!". Calabro had a million lines like that, sitting in a seemingly endless vault. When he employed them, they never sounded canned or corny. They were always unique, and always perfectly appropriate. My friend John, who was my equal in literary nerdiness, and I used to deconstruct Calabro's poetic devices. We were the only two guys in the sports bar who would leap to our feet during an exciting play and shout "Brilliant use of synecdoche, Calabro!" or "Wow, alliteration AND metonymy in the same sentence? Move over, Homer!"
The 1996 NBA Finals were considered a foregone conclusion by everyone in the world, including the local Seattle media. The Chicago Bulls had won 70 games that season and seemed truly invincible. The Sonics found themselves down 3-0, then took Game 4 at Chicago to avoid the sweep. Then they won another game at home, before losing the championship in Game 6. Shawn Kemp played a courageous series and nearly willed his team to victory. My favorite memory from The Finals was when Gary Payton stole the ball from Michael Jordan then raced down the court and actually (though barely)dunked the ball; then he trotted back, glowering at Jordan. It seemed ill-advised to me at the time, to be taunting MJ like that -- espcially after such a lame dunk.
I also remember Nate McMillan had major back pain, and was unable to play during The Finals. I remember images of him sobbing on the sidelines during the series, in pain probably as much from the psychological agony as the back spasms.
In the '96-'97 season everything went downhill. Shawn Kemp started acting like a petulant baby, even though he was finally a man. The Sonics had signed Jim McIlvaine in the offseason to an outrageously expensive contract, even though McIlvaine was an unproven, gangly, unimpressive basketball player. But he was about 7'1", so he got the money. That contract seemed to anger Kemp a great deal, and by the next season Kemp was gone -- a free agent signed by Cleveland. The Sonics' brief George Karl dynasty was officially dead. Karl moved on to Milwaukee, and Paul Westphal started his brief tenure in Seattle (as a coach this time).
I have barely paid attention to the Sonics in the past few years, except for the times when I feel like I need a good Kevin Calabro "fix". The trade for Ray Allen has availed me the opportunity to see one of the most amazing basketball players on the planet. Ray Allen is a special player and it's truly a pity that he has to languish on this horrible Seattle team since Howard Schultz brought him here 3 or 4 years ago. I respect and admire Allen's courage at playing so well and so consistently, even on a crappy team.
The one consistent factor in my 20 years of Sonics: Kevin "The Golden Voice" Calabro. He has a gift and there is truly no one like him. He has made it impossible for me to listen to any other sportscaster. They all seem so tepid, gratuitous, and amateur. Calabro can paint a picture with words so perfectly. I often imagine him sitting around a campfire, reciting The Iliad from memory, painting an oral picture of a civilization and a war in a land and time far, far away. Calabro is the quasi-celebrity I would most like to meet. He, like Ray Allen, has soldiered on even in recent years, still putting forth unparalleled work but not really having much material to work with. There is truly nothing like listening to Calabro call an exciting basketball game. If there could be a second "Mr. Sonic", then it would be Calabro.
posted by Max at 11:18 AM
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